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Lot Essay
'Determined to be modern and arresting at all costs is a section of the Society of Artists which is represented in the present show, opened in Sydney on September 10. There is some exceedingly eccentric work—of the type notorious in certain European galleries but rejected by the saner schools. The high priestess of the cult in Sydney would seem, to be Miss Aletta Lewis, who is a Slade student. Her contributions to the present show are many, but her masterpiece is called "Hot Night." It looks hot, in fact it might have been painted from the roof of the traditional Hades, where ugly, misshapen humans and devils sprawl around in colorful and "cubey" profusion—or else it is a nightmare induced by a violent attack of "flu."' ('Table Talk of the Week’ Table Talk, Melbourne, 15 Sept. 1927, p.6).
Lewis’s work has largely disappeared. This is her most notorious painting, Hot Night, exhibited in 1927 with The Society of Artists in Sydney, which Home described as 'the sensation of the exhibition’, it is known only from a black-and-white photograph in Design and Art Australia online.
'... Painter, illustrator and writer, [Lewis was] born in Orpington, Kent, on 5 July 1904, daughter of Guilford Lewis, solicitor. She was educated at Bedales, Hampshire, and trained at the Slade School, London, where she held a scholarship and, while still in England, she exhibited at the New English Art Club. Lewis spent her most exciting period as a young artist in Australia, coming to work in Sydney in 1927 at the age of twenty-three. She immediately became closely involved with Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, teaching there three days a week until 1929. Her modern art training in London reflected in the linear and design quality of her work influenced the local art scene, both through her teaching and as a regular exhibitor in leading shows. She took part in the Second Exhibition of Modern Art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1927 – a Contemporary Group show – and exhibited portraits and landscapes with the NSW Society of Artists in 1927-29 and two portraits in the Archibald Prize for 1928 ...' (Design and Art Australia online). Lewis returned to England in 1930 after painting in Samoa and in Ceylon. She exhibited with Roy de Maistre in Paris in 1931, and married the English sculptor Denis Dunlop. Her career was curtailed due to ill health following the birth of her child in 1942.
Lewis’s work has largely disappeared. This is her most notorious painting, Hot Night, exhibited in 1927 with The Society of Artists in Sydney, which Home described as 'the sensation of the exhibition’, it is known only from a black-and-white photograph in Design and Art Australia online.
'... Painter, illustrator and writer, [Lewis was] born in Orpington, Kent, on 5 July 1904, daughter of Guilford Lewis, solicitor. She was educated at Bedales, Hampshire, and trained at the Slade School, London, where she held a scholarship and, while still in England, she exhibited at the New English Art Club. Lewis spent her most exciting period as a young artist in Australia, coming to work in Sydney in 1927 at the age of twenty-three. She immediately became closely involved with Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, teaching there three days a week until 1929. Her modern art training in London reflected in the linear and design quality of her work influenced the local art scene, both through her teaching and as a regular exhibitor in leading shows. She took part in the Second Exhibition of Modern Art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1927 – a Contemporary Group show – and exhibited portraits and landscapes with the NSW Society of Artists in 1927-29 and two portraits in the Archibald Prize for 1928 ...' (Design and Art Australia online). Lewis returned to England in 1930 after painting in Samoa and in Ceylon. She exhibited with Roy de Maistre in Paris in 1931, and married the English sculptor Denis Dunlop. Her career was curtailed due to ill health following the birth of her child in 1942.